


now it's me-time (believe that)

by curiouslyfic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thea Queen will never be like her parents — any of them — but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t learned from their example.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now it's me-time (believe that)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hazelandglasz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/gifts).



> Thanks to Kayoko, who checked my canon, and Kinky_Kneazle, who checked the rest.

Thea Queen will never be like her parents — any of them — but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t learned from their example.

She barely remembers Robert. Knows she loves him but doesn’t _know_ him.

She’s a little clearer about the others.

If she had to pick a parent she’d most like to be, it would be Walter, who’d understood _trust but verify_ before she’d even known that was a thing people did. It would absolutely not be Malcolm Merlyn, who’s ruined every part of her life he’s ever touched and who shows no signs of stopping.

She doesn’t think she has the emotional distance yet to think clearly about her mother. Thea’s never going to escape the long reach of Moira Queen’s legacy and some part of her knows she’s going to be her mother’s reflection, she just can’t quite figure out how, whether she’ll be completely identical or polar opposites.

Isn’t quite sure which way she wants most or even which way she _should_ want, which means her safest choice for now is _Walter_.

She didn’t get nearly enough time with him, she thinks, and she tries not to think too much about how much better Thea Steele would have handled everything that’s happened to her since he left.

.

Nobody else _gets_ it but Felicity, because no one else had even really _known_ Walter much, but Roy tries because Roy just will not stop _trying_ now. All that time she’d put in trying to connect with him, trying to get through all those lies and secrets, and he’s trying _now_.

She appreciates it and everything, Roy now is _perfect_ , but she kind of hates that she had to become Thea Merlyn first to get here. She wants to believe they could have had this if she’d stayed like he’d asked, let him have his one last thing he had to do before they got out of Starling City forever, but she knows now that’s not how life works.

Maybe all those months without her really showed Roy what was at stake.

Maybe all those months without him really showed her who she was.

Maybe that distance she still doesn’t have with her mother is distance she really needed with Roy and now that she’s got it, she can finally appreciate him for what he is, what they really can be.

What they really will be when she finally lets herself trust him again.

Felicity understands her about Walter but nobody understands about Roy.

.

Thea curls her shoulders in, taps one blunt, manicured nail on the bar top restlessly. Thea Merlyn owns every space she’s in; Thea now refuses. “Isn’t it just like it is with you and Ollie?”

Felicity looks up at her and sort of frowns. It doesn’t last long but Thea knows what she sees, another product of Malcolm the Life Ruiner. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Thea rolls her eyes. “Why not? I’d say it fits.”

Felicity looks hard. Well, hard for Felicity, which isn’t exactly ninja sparring levels of resolve. “Your brother is not Roy,” Felicity says firmly. “More to the point, Roy is not your brother.”

The _for which you should be grateful_ goes unspoken but it comes through pretty clear anyway. It’s not the first time this has come up, though it’s the first time she’s had Felicity alone long enough to get some answers.

“It looks like it fits to me,” Thea says, deliberately Thea Queen, as young and hopeful as she needs to be to get what she wants. “You two had a connection, then he did something and you couldn’t have it anymore, and now you’re not sure you want that connection back.” She can’t read exactly what’s in Felicity’s expression then, just knows there’s enough pain and regret in it to come clean if she pushes exactly right. “I mean, doesn’t Ollie just want what’s best for you?”

She doesn’t even know how that’s gone wrong, just knows it has by the way Felicity just looks _hurt_ , like Thea’s somehow found something soft and dug her claws in just because. Which is so very Thea Merlyn she cannot stand herself; Thea Queen has lots of reasons to be angry at the people in her life but she has exactly _no_ reason to take that out on _Felicity_.

And even as she’s stumbling through an apology and trying to bolt her own club, she already knows what needs to happen now, where she needs to be.

She just doesn’t quite know _who_.

.

The headquarters of Starling National Bank isn’t nearly as familiar to her as the Queen Consolidated building used to be but she’s well-known enough that she gets where she’s going with minimal fuss; everyone knows who her mother was, everyone _knows_ , and she has a lifetime’s experience getting past reluctant admin staff to see her parents.

Walter hasn’t really changed in any way that matters. She doesn’t understand how much she’s needed that to be true until she sees it for herself; if he’s annoyed that she’s come barging in to interrupt his day’s work, he doesn’t show it.

If anything, he softens when he sees her.

“Did you mean it? When you said you’d help me if I ever needed anything, did you mean that?”

Walter looks concerned. For her. “Of course. Anything.” Then he’s standing up, coming at her with that hug ESP he’d always had for her after her dad and Ollie disappeared. “Thea, what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she says, and she hugs him first, hugs fiercely, and when he hugs back, lets her decide how long and tight she needs to hold on, she thinks maybe Thea Steele isn’t so impossible.

.

Thea Queen thrives on manipulation and Thea Merlyn is just hateful but Thea Steele is more than ready to take on Roy Harper.

 

 

 


End file.
